Wounded Wolves
by Ariel D
Summary: What if Entreri uncorked and actually confronted Jarlaxle about the past? Jarlaxle comes to settle their differences, and Entreri speaks his mind. Part II: Entreri considers solitude vs. intimacy.
1. The Wolf

**Wounded Wolves**

By Ariel-D

_Description: What if Entreri uncorked and actually confronted Jarlaxle about the past? Jarlaxle comes to settle their differences, and Entreri speaks his mind._

_Disclaimer: Belongs to RAS and Wizards of the Coast, not me. No profit is being made._

_Author's Note: I'm not sure when this story is set. Just some time after RotP. It could be after TLT. It could be anywhere in between._

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><p><strong>Part I: The Wolf<strong>

When Artemis Entreri answered his door and found a brightly dressed drow with an oversized hat on his head, he nearly slammed the door in Jarlaxle's face.

As though sensing this, Jarlaxle extended the silver-headed cane in his hand and pressed it in the middle of the door, holding it open. "Before you shut me out, hear me out."

"Go to the Nine Hells."

"I already have." Jarlaxle grinned. "Or, technically, the Abyss. It's not worth a return visit."

Entreri stared at the drow, but despite the smile, Jarlaxle didn't seem to be joking. "So that is what's wrong with you."

Jarlaxle laughed.

Knowing nothing short of a full magical barrage by the likes of someone such as Elminister would stop the drow, Entreri stepped aside. "Make it quick. I'm not in the mood."

"You never are." Jarlaxle swept inside. He wore a crimson hat with a matching silk, crimson shirt. As per the style of the age, the cuffs were flared, and a matching red and cream doublet was fitted over the shirt. This was offset by a black piwafwi, black pants, and shiny black boots. The usual mass of jewelry accompanied the outfit, of course.

In short, to Entreri's eyes, Jarlaxle had not changed in the intervening years since he'd last seen him.

Entreri shut the door behind Jarlaxle and watched the drow tour his sitting room. "Meager." He ran a finger over the top of black leather chair.

"Practical," Entreri corrected.

Jarlaxle plopped into the leather chair, crossing his ankle over his knee.

Entreri remained standing, leaning against the wall behind the settee.

"It is time to settle our differences," Jarlaxle declared.

"Good luck."

Jarlaxle smiled with a flash of white teeth. "More than luck, I should say."

"I doubt it." Entreri crossed his arms over his chest. He had meant to go out later, so he was already wearing his full complement of magical items. Items enough, he hoped, to withstand psionic prying, should Jarlaxle be using such a trick.

"But our troubles stem from a basic source," Jarlaxle said, tilting his hat back to better see Entreri's eyes. "You believe I acted maliciously when I did not."

"Your misunderstanding comes from a basic source," Entreri replied, eyes narrowed. "You think this problem doesn't go back to the very beginning of our association."

Jarlaxle tilted his head. "Is that so?"

Entreri smirked. "It began the day you ordered me to go to Menzoberranzan with you."

"That was an offer."

"It was an order."

The mercenaries gazed at each other.

"You didn't enjoy your time there, I know," Jarlaxle said. "But I enabled you to get free."

"As your pawn to save Drizzt Do'Urden."

Jarlaxle merely shrugged.

Entreri's eyes narrowed again. "You enslaved me."

Jarlaxle held up one finger. "I meant to help you. To show you that – "

"My life means nothing?"

Jarlaxle just smiled.

"Well, you took from me all I had," Entreri snapped. Before, he could never have spoken of this. Before, he would have never allowed himself to admit this.

This was not before.

Entreri stared down at Jarlaxle. Hard. "I wandered around in utter depression for seven years."

"If that was all your life was founded on, I did you a favor," Jarlaxle said lightly. Then, more seriously: "You're capable of much more."

"That was not your decision to make." Entreri stalked the room, pacing from the door to the front window of his apartment. "That is what makes me insane with rage about Do'Urden and you. You both think you can make judgment calls just by intuiting things about me but without having actual facts."

"Do enlighten me."

Entreri did an about-face, staring him down again. "When I was a child, I was repeatedly told I was useless and worthless. That I was nothing, that I would never become anything, that I wasn't worth the crumbs they fed me. After years of this tender care, I ended up in the streets by myself, fighting to survive – foraging for food like a damn rat. But I did survive, and I was picked up by the Basadoni Guild. There I learned I did indeed have a talent: I was an exceptional swordsman. It was marketable skill. I wasn't worthless, useless rubbish. I was the _best._ And then you dragged me to a place that striped all that from me. The thing that gave me value meant nothing there. There were 20,000 others just like me." He sneered. "Oh, yes. That is a great gift, Jarlaxle.

The drow was silent for a moment. "You are worth more than your swordsmanship."

"My swordsmanship is all anyone is interested in," Entreri said, leaning against the wall once more, this time by the window. "Or my skills as a thief."

"You have much more than that," Jarlaxle said. "Intelligence, cunning, the ability to read others. I realize Idalia's flute is a sour memory for you, but you proved you have an excellent ear for pitch and music. Also, do you remember the silhouette you painted of me on the wall of our apartment in Heliogabalus? I'd never seen you paint anything before, but you rendered a perfect outline of me. You have unrealized musical and artistic talent, my friend."

"I'm not your friend." Entreri crossed to his curio cabinet, where he'd begun collecting various daggers that caught his fancy. One had a golden snake encircling the grip to create the guard. "Or, rather, you are not mine."

Jarlaxle watched him. "I meant to ease your dourness from you. I wanted you to be happy. My goal was to lift whatever pall rides over your head so that you could appreciate life, enjoy living. You have always known you weren't happy, but you never did anything to secure happiness for yourself. Or even to enjoy the most basic things, like food and sex."

Entreri tapped the glass, staring in at the hissing snake head at the end of the sheath. "But you were not considerate or careful about how you did so. Even if I accepted your claim that friends help even when they are not asked, what did you really think would happen when you dragged a human down into Menzoberranzan? Or when you gave him a magical item no one knew much about – one that plays around with your mind? You didn't know what was in my mind or in my past for it to dig up and filter itself through."

"And yet to live with a closed heart is a tragic thing."

"My heart is scar tissue," Entreri said, turning away from the cabinet. "And it has scabs on it from your bungling. Do you know what happens if you tear off a scab prematurely? Scar tissue. Do you know what happens if you cut at scar tissue? More scar tissue." He stared at Jarlaxle. "If you took a drowling into Bregan D'aerthe and he was terrified of spiders, would you throw him into a pit of spiders to cure him?"

Jarlaxle shook his head.

"Of course not," Entreri said, barely pausing. "You would put a small spider on the opposite side of the room from him and slowly work him over to it. Likewise, magically ripping the top off my head and figuratively spilling all my brains out wasn't the way to heal me."

For the first time that Entreri had ever seen, Jarlaxle's gaze fell to his lap, and he didn't answer.

"You epitomize the old saying 'With friends like you, I don't need enemies,'" Entreri said, perching on the arm of the settee. "Everyone is so convinced they know who I should be. Everyone is so convinced that I shouldn't be me. The only person who has ever accepted me exactly as I am is Dwahvel, and she's the only person I've truly been able to call friend. You don't 'befriend' someone, or associate with someone, for who you think you can turn them into. And certainly if you decide you want to help them, you do it with their permission, and you make sure what you're doing will actually help instead of making them worse."

"But you were intent on never changing," Jarlaxle said, meeting his gaze again. His brow furrowed. "You were intent on never facing your past, never reclaiming your right to happiness, never enjoying what your intelligence and talents could rightfully win for you."

"It would have been kinder to split open my skull with an axe."

Jarlaxle held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. For several minutes, silence reigned.

When Jarlaxle finally spoke, his voice was quiet. "I have regretted that you were hurt, my friend. As I said earlier, it was not my intention. Even though it failed abysmally, all I wished to do was help, and I gained no satisfaction from seeing you hurt instead."

Entreri ended up staring out the window because there was really nothing to say to that. Admittedly, it was better to know that Jarlaxle at least felt bad about the damage he'd caused. Better than thinking he didn't care or that he'd even enjoy the destruction and suffering.

But regret or guilt did not erase the past. Although Entreri doubted it, his uncle could have regretted molesting him, but that could never change the amount of trauma he had incurred.

"I have always admired you," Jarlaxle said. "Your fortitude, your will, your confidence, your self-possession. I have admired your intelligence and cunning and your skill with a blade, the way you improvise and think ahead. And, yes, my attention has ever been on that and so much more: who you could be."

Entreri snorted.

"Is there no place for us to begin again?" Jarlaxle asked.

Entreri doubted that his answer mattered one way or the other. If he said no, Jarlaxle would simply vanish for a decade and then show back up again, some insane venture tucked in his pocket. "That is less the point than your manipulation of me."

"Are we not both manipulators?" Jarlaxle arched a white eyebrow. "Have we both not manipulated each other to get what we want?"

Entreri shook his head. "The only thing I ever gained off of you was Charon's Claw, and not in any direct sense. Also, the only reason I did that was because I needed it and the gauntlet to fight Kimmuriel and Rai'guy."

Jarlaxle gazed at him silently.

Entreri met the stare.

Long moments passed.

"You never asked me what I wanted," Entreri pointed out. "You never asked what I needed."

"You were aimless."

"No one is truly aimless," Entreri said. "Everyone is going a direction all the time. Some people are unconsciously running away, and some people are unconsciously trying to reclaim the past. Some people are unconsciously repeating past traumas, and some people are unconsciously acting out that which they have always known. But no one is doing something for no reason whatsoever. They simply feel aimless."

Jarlaxle inclined his head in acknowledgement. "Wise words."

"I paid much for the wisdom," Entreri sneered.

Silence reigned for a moment more.

"Ultimately, my issue is with the fact that you did what made you happy without considering the effect it would have on me," Entreri said. "You called yourself my friend, and you set out to help me. But when presented with the opportunity to have something you wanted, you went for it without counting the cost to me. And you did this having always claimed to understand me, perhaps better than I understood myself." He shook his head. "I am not surprised, of course. You are drow, and you are a mercenary. To be a traitor is in your nature. But your offer of friendship was initially real, which makes your betrayal greater. More absolute." Entreri frowned. "While I am not disillusioned, I am deeply disappointed in you."

It was very faint indeed, but Jarlaxle flinched just slightly.

Entreri stood. "People often say that it's better to have loved and lost than to never love at all. I don't agree. Calihye's offer of a relationship, your offer of friendship . . . to have things I wanted or things I could actually hold onto brought just within my grasp only to be torn away is far more hellish than to never have them." His voice, his expression, were flat. "Before, I could only look in from the outside and imagine what it might be like to have those things. Now I have tasted them – just a sip of water for a man crossing an endless desert – only to have them ripped from me."

Jarlaxle stood as well, clearly taking his cue to leave. "I can see your argument, although I hold the opposite view." He paused. "Then you're saying forgiveness is not possible."

Entreri walked to the door, opening it. "Forgiveness is a gift." He had granted his mother forgiveness for selling him into slavery. He understood why she'd done it, and he understood that she'd killed her own heart by doing it. "It is not the same as acceptance. While it is true that forgiveness never means that what happened is all right, it is also true that forgiveness does not mean a restoration of a relationship – partnership, friendship, or otherwise. After all, I am the guardian of my own safety."

Jarlaxle gazed at him a moment, then tipped his hat. "Farewell, Artemis."

Entreri watched him leave without responding.

When he shut the door, he knew it would not be the last he saw of Jarlaxle. The drow would return one day, probably sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, Entreri would be constructing more fortresses around his heart.

He could never afford to leave himself open to Jarlaxle's machinations ever again.

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><p><em>AN: So if you read me often, you know I'm a huge proponent of SotS and the friendship that was supposed to grow between Artemis and Jarlaxle. I also once said I'd never write a tragedy. Well, I don't necessary believe a projection of this storyline would be an automatic tragedy, if that helps anyone, and I frankly have some steep angst to work through. Therefore, more parts will follow._


	2. Tiger

**A/N: Set during RotP.**

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><p><strong>Wounded Wolves Part II: Tiger<strong>

Intimacy was poison.

Artemis Entreri paused at that thought and frowned. Perhaps that wasn't entirely fair. Perhaps he should consider that whom he had intimacy with made a difference.

And intimacy, he had concluded, was not merely a matter of romance or sex.

In the castle Jarlaxle had stolen, Entreri had found dozens of nooks and crannies to disappear into in order to avoid the drow who came and went, swarming up from the Underdark like black flies.

For two years now, he had rarely been alone. Certainly Jarlaxle vanished from time to time – most often to have sex, but also to get reports or magical items from Kimmuriel. But for the most part, Entreri had been crammed into inn rooms, one-room apartments, and even tents with Jarlaxle. From time to time, they picked up more people temporarily. Right now, that included Athrogate and Calihye, although the woman had proven easy on the nerves.

Overall, though, Entreri felt as though he were being pressed to death under a boulder, and he didn't think it had to do with Idalia's flute.

He was suffocating.

He'd been suffocating for two years.

Entreri emerged from his current nook and walked up to the parapet, gazing out at the sweeping landscape around him – sharp hills, crags, streams. There was a certain beauty to it, he supposed.

He wished he could go get lost in it and never return.

Although Jarlaxle let Entreri wander off and be alone, he didn't really understand. Jarlaxle was a pack animal, like a wolf. He enjoyed people – talking, mingling, interacting. He thrived on it, drawing energy from crowded rooms and parties.

Entreri was the tiger, content to hunt alone. To wander his territory by himself, fighting off all intruders.

For a moment, his imagination took him there: he was the tiger, sleek and graceful. Eyes and nose trained on his prey, his ears perked forward to catch all sounds of movement. His muscles tensing as he crouched, his tail flicking. And then he burst forward, racing, his muscles rippling as he chased and caught his prey, breaking its neck with his powerful jaws.

The daydream ended as quickly as it began, and he knew the flute was responsible. However, for those brief seconds, he was not drowning in drow. He was alone, free, answering to no one but himself and the inherent brutality of nature.

His entire self, down to the core, seemed to scramble after that autonomy. He felt as though his soul would tear out of his chest. Clawing, ripping, reaching, yearning . . .

If only he could be independent again: the assassin who worked for the highest bidder, retained by a guild by gold alone, not dependence. Even the boy in the street who answered to no one, king of his own miserable shanty town.

Entreri flexed his hands on the stone, which was cold against his fingers and palm. He wondered if he could ever be free of Jarlaxle. Did he even want to be free of Calihye?

He felt pulled in two directions. The concept of being on a emotional rack seemed reasonable as a metaphor.

Part of him had always wished to have friends. He rarely acknowledged that part of himself, but after spending time with Dwahvel, he couldn't deny it was there. He envied Drizzt Do'Urden's effortless companionship with others. Despite being a drow, he had two humans, a dwarf, and a halfling loyal to him.

Jarlaxle had offered him friendship, although to Entreri's mind, he had also retracted it.

Calihye offered him a relationship, he supposed.

And he felt suffocated.

Intimacy? Companionship?

Yes. No. Sometimes.

He sighed as the cold wind whipped over him, stinging his cheeks. He had never felt there was anything wrong with being a loner. Some people were, and some people weren't. However, the question might be whether it was possible to be too alone.

But even that question grated against what Entreri could only define as his personal needs. They might be learned needs, taught to him by how much time he'd spent alone when he was young, but they were still needs.

He wondered if not having enough time to himself could make him emotionally ill. If so, it would explain why he'd been in an increasingly black humor over the past two years.

Although the damn flute wasn't helping matters by digging up his insides.

He turned and headed back to his nook, too chilled by the wind to remain at the parapet. At least here he could be alone, if only for a few hours. It would not last long, he knew.

The boulder seemed to press harder upon his chest.

He had no idea what to do.


End file.
